Shipping Products to Amazon FBA: How to Choose a Freight Forwarder

In this post, I want to talk about shipping products to Amazon and how to choose a freight forwarder that’s worth your money.

I always say that selling with Amazon FBA is a great business model if done correctly. It’s fairly easy to do, it’s profitable and you can quickly scale the business if you have the means to do so. But what I love most about Amazon FBA is that it’s a passive business. 

Most of the actual work happens only when I research products and get my listing up. Other than that, I put in the minimum amount of effort. I can check the Amazon seller account every couple of hours and see my products being sold and money coming in, while I didn’t lift a finger to make it happen. A truly incredible time we live in…

That being said, just like with any other business out there, difficulties and problems may arise at any given moment.

With Amazon FBA, what I have found to be one of the most challenging/stressful parts is the shipment of products from China to Amazon FBA fulfillment centers. For this very reason, it is crucial that you find a good freight forwarder, preferably one that knows the Amazon FBA business.

What does a freight forwarder do?

When you decide to sell on Amazon, you will get a factory, most likely in China, to manufacture your products for you. Once the products are complete, you will need to ship them to Amazon fulfillment centers, either by sea or by air.

To help you do that, you will need to find a freight forwarder. A freight forwarder, for the time of the delivery of your products from China to America and/or the EU, will be your best friend and a business buddy. It will be the one to answer your questions, pick up your products in China, take them to the boat or plane, deal with the customs, file a bunch of papers, talk on your behalf to a number of people, inform you if and when something goes wrong, label and inspect your boxes, and much much more.

Recommended read: MARKETPLACE SUPERHEROES Review: Step-By-Step Course Towards Selling Physical Products on Amazon FBA

Basically, freight forwarders are doing all of the dirty work that you don’t want to be doing if you are getting yourself into the passive Amazon FBA business. Why? Because forwarding shipments is complicated and many things can go wrong. Making mistakes at that stage can get very expensive.

Can I just use an agent or a broker?

You can, but you shouldn’t. Unlike freight forwarding companies, a broker or an agent will outsource most of what is related to taking your products from point A to point B. If something happens to your cargo at the customs, finding a solution will be easier if you have a freight forwarder accompanying it. Also, unlike a broker or an agent, freight companies can inspect and store your goods at their warehouses, but more about that later on.

How to choose the right freight forwarder?

Although I haven’t been in the Amazon FBA business for too long, by now I have enough experience to say that most freight forwarders are simply no good.

Poor communication

The biggest reason why I have had to look for new freight forwarders was due to poor communication.

It’s crazy how old-fashioned some freight forwarder companies are. Several times it has literally taken me a week to receive a sentence-long email. At that moment I felt like it would have been quicker to use pigeon post.

Moreover, the communication is also often very unclear. I’ve had to ask the same questions over and over in order to get the answer I was looking for. This kept me very anxious, especially during the first couple of shipments when I had almost no knowledge of how the whole process works.

It’s very unfortunate, but poor communication is a very common problem among freight forwarders. You would think that fast and effective communication is something that all companies must provide in order to keep their clients coming back, especially in the digital age, but seems like this is not the case at all.

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They must know the Amazon business

If you decide to take on the Amazon FBA business, I would strongly recommend that you work with a freight forwarder that knows Amazon’s policies and prep requirements.

For example, if your boxes would be damaged during transit, Amazon may decline them on arrival. For you, this will be a waste of time, money and it will be an incredible headache. However, if your freight forwarder has experience with Amazon, they will know in what condition the boxes can be sent to the fulfillment centers. If something is wrong, they will inform you about it, show pictures to you, fix the boxes and send them off. Sure, it will cost a bit extra for the service, but at least you can sleep well at night.

As another example, say your factory in China decided to use bigger outer boxes than the ones they promised to use earlier. They decided to do it without telling you, which is a very possible scenario. Again, oversized boxes will be declined by Amazon fulfillment centers, but if your freight forwarding company knows the business well, they will save you.

I once paid a freight forwarder to label my boxes in their warehouse prior to sending them off to Amazon. I gave the freight company Amazon’s instructions on how exactly to label the boxes. Two weeks later I got a warning from Amazon saying that my boxes were labeled incorrectly. This just once again shows how important it is to find a freight forwarder that cares.

The freight company must be proactive and helpful

An ideal freight forwarder does not only answer basic emails and delivers your products to the destination country, but is also proactive and helpful.

What I mean by proactive is that whenever something happens to your cargo, the freight forwarder needs to keep you updated. They should notify you of every change happening to your shipment.

An example of a non-proactive freight forwarder is when I asked several times to let me know once the shipment has arrived at the freight forwarder’s warehouse so that we could send it off to Amazon as soon as possible. After being worried and having sent yet another one of those reminder emails, I was told that my goods have been sitting at their hub for the past three weeks! No one bothered to even let me know!

If there is a problem with the cargo, a freight forwarder should also be quick to let you know about it so that you don’t have to wait and lose money. Like I said earlier, time is expensive in this business. The perfect freight company will be there to offer solutions whenever a problem occurs.

Finally, they should warn you ahead of time of any important information that you may need to know or provide them with before the shipment takes place, such as: VAT number, EORI number, Continuous and Single Entry Bond, EIN number, Commodity or HS codes, Bill of Lading, etc.

They must have a hub/warehouse

As an Amazon FBA seller, you must be absolutely sure that there are no problems with your boxes once they arrive at the Amazon fulfillment centers. This means that they are not damaged, they are not torn apart, they have labels in place, they are of correct dimensions and they are not overweight. If any of these are true, Amazon may simply reject your shipment.

Recommended read: Amazon FBA: The Mistake That Could Have Cost Me $3000

Now, if you did decide to send your cargo directly from China to Amazon without having it stop at a hub/warehouse for inspection, and Amazon ended up rejecting it, you are in deep $h*!, my friend.

To make sure none of this ever happens to you, ask your freight forwarder for inspection services in the destination country. Only by having the boxes fully inspected, you are guaranteed to have your products accepted by Amazon.

Some Amazon FBA sellers think they save money by sending their products directly to Amazon, without having them make a stop. This is a bad approach. It may work for the first shipment, second or third, but it’s only a matter of time before something unpleasant happens to your boxes during transit. The result of that may cost you much more than the money you saved earlier by trying to be as cheap as possible.

It’s actually very common for either the factories to make mistakes or cargo getting wrecked during transit. The only way to stay on the safe side is to have your cargo inspected at the destination country.

Hopefully, you found this post useful and now know what you can and should expect from a freight company. The bottom line is that this is your business and you want to make sure that your cargo arrives at Amazon as quickly and as safely as possible.

If you have any other questions, feel free to drop them in the comment section below. You can also sign up with your email if you want to get notified of similar posts directly to your mailbox. 🙂

Thank you for stopping by and good luck!

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